the shade tree offers not just shade, but a good example for enlightenment seekers and lazy folk, alike
A Model Tree [Tanka]
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DAILY PHOTO: Kesar Kyari Bagh
BOOK REVIEW: Richard III by William Shakespeare
King Richard III by William ShakespeareMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Like Macbeth, this is the story of one man’s unchecked ambition bringing about his ruin. Richard wants to be king. The problem is that his eldest brother (Edward) is already king. The good news for Richard is that Edward is sick. The bad news is that Edward has two sons (and a daughter,) and there’s another elder brother (i.e. Clarence.) While Richard is willing to let nature take its course with Edward, he’ll have to get rid of everyone else between himself and the Crown.
Richard is different from Macbeth in that Richard’s psychopathy is more like that of Iago from “Othello.” Macbeth is conflicted and, though he keeps digging himself deeper, the burden of guilt leads to a descent into madness. Richard is anxious, but it’s not clear that he feels bad about what he’s done (i.e. having his brother’s boys killed, as well as his own brother, his wife, and a number of aristocrats.) When his own mother tells him she wishes she’d strangled him to death with his umbilical cord it rolls off him with the cool detachment one expects of a psychopath. That said, in the last act, he is visited by a series of ghosts. These visitations and his subsequent monologue might give indication that he’s realized how awful he is, but one could also argue that he’s just worried about the precarious state of his kingship.
The hammer drops when Richmond, a nephew of Henry VI, leads forces against Richard. In part, the aforementioned ghosts (which could be interpreted as bad dreams) psychologically do in Richard. (Though the ghosts also visit Richmond with the opposite message, a positive one.) But also, Richmond has proven his leadership skill by forging alliances with the French and the Scots, and turning Lord Stanley (despite Stanley having a son held hostage by Richard.)
While this play not only lacks the character nuance of Macbeth as well as The Scottish Play’s brilliant poetic language, it does have more great lines than the other “War of the Roses” plays (i.e. Henry VI, Pt. I – III.) [e.g. It opens with “Now is the winter of our discontent” and, of course, there’s “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”]
This conclusion to the War of the Roses story is well worth reading.
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Agents of Sanctification [Free Verse]
Some love attributing sacredness -- places beyond place, times beyond time, the infinite & the infinitesimal. But anything elevated to the sacred becomes a thing for which people will kill or die. Often, people don't make this reckoning until the dying 's done: -death for a sign -death for a symbol -death for a chunk of dead earth -death for a vaguely evaluated idea The agents of sanctification will kill us all.
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DAILY PHOTO: Mahogany Forest, Bohol
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That Last Lost Generation [Free Verse]
Only too eager to have the machine installed in their brains, they did what they could, and, instead, installed their brains into the machine. Data sparkled in the mind void, bouncing about and careening into other bytes and clusters. But the crash cascades always came, a cannibalistic consumption of fact, transmogrifying it into a shabby soup of quasi-reality. Brain-pans paining, densely packed with alternate realities that could never be rectified. By the time they realized the virtue of going out to play, they were no longer sure what "outside" meant -- Outside of what? Where's the exit? Where is there something else? -something simple? How's one get off this speeding bus? It became the pain that ruled that last lost generation.
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Calming Chaos [Haiku]
Flame Mind [Common Meter]
His eyes take in the dancing flame until his mind is flame. He anticipates its flutter, its flareups, just the same. There's nothing in his mind or eye that is not set ablaze. He knows not whether it's been like this for hours, weeks, or days. Others think it will devour him, leaving a pile of ash, taking him from this world at once, in one big, blinding flash.
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DAILY PHOTO: Sukhbaatar Square
Ulan Bator Limerick
A craftsman from old Ulan Bator made Genghis Khan statues by the score. "Call me a fierce lauder, but he's the best marauder. We haven't marauded well since days of yore."
Tiger Riding for Beginners 